Free Shakil Afridi

[kandrathe]

I read about Dr. Afridi this morning and immediately went to wh.gov and made a petition.

"ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Pakistani doctor who helped the CIA in its hunt for Osama bin Laden was sentenced Wednesday to 33 years in prison for treason, officials in northwest Pakistan’s tribal area said.

Shakil Afridi, a government surgeon in the semi-autonomous Khyber Agency along the border with Afghanistan, was detained by Pakistani intelligence officials a few weeks after the U.S. raid that killed bin Laden. " - Wash. Post

http://wh.gov/FaR

I'm not disagreeing that he broke their law, but we shouldn't use and abandon our friends like this. We should stand up, and take responsibility for causing this situation, and be willing to correct it the best we can.

[DeeBye]

BBC story

CBC story

CNN link

edit: i can't find a decent fox news link

[Quark]

edit: i can't find a decent fox news link

[Jester]

I'm not disagreeing that he broke their law, but we shouldn't use and abandon our friends like this. We should stand up, and take responsibility for causing this situation, and be willing to correct it the best we can.

Okay, how? It doesn't sound like a problem with an obvious solution.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

I'm not disagreeing that he broke their law, but we shouldn't use and abandon our friends like this. We should stand up, and take responsibility for causing this situation, and be willing to correct it the best we can.

Okay, how? It doesn't sound like a problem with an obvious solution.

I would like our State Department to diplomatically make a deal to "buy" him out of prison, in return we maintain a cordial working relationship.

Also: It is not dissimilar to the Hmong situation at our exit from Vietnam. We should have foreseen that the NVA would target our "allies", but then again we hardly exited Saigon cleanly either. That was an outright war. In the end, we rescued most of the "boat people" and provided sanctuary for them within the US.

Pakistan is supposed to be on our side, and instead seems more intent on targeting their citizens who collude with the US to find terrorists. Chen Guangcheng most likely also actually did violate China's laws in his work to support the rights of the disabled and abolish state sponsored sterilization. There is the difference between a legal and moral obligation.

[Frag]

Oh, right.. person. I thought you found a good legendary in D3.

That's even more rare than justice.

[Jabberwolky]

I agree with Kandrathe. The man stuck out his neck for us and now has been found guilty of treason for it. He used his identity as a doctor to obtain dna evidence of who lived in that residence that allowed us to ultimatly do the deed. I hope the US will honor this man by doing all that can be done to help him. A trade, a buy..something.

[eppie]

I agree with Kandrathe. The man stuck out his neck for us and now has been found guilty of treason for it. He used his identity as a doctor to obtain dna evidence of who lived in that residence that allowed us to ultimatly do the deed. I hope the US will honor this man by doing all that can be done to help him. A trade, a buy..something.

He should have known that this could happen. If you see how the US often treats (or I hope treated) their war veterans this thing was bound to happen.
Nonetheless a very sad story of course.

[shoju]

I wont lie, I don't stay "on top" of foreign policy news, I keep up enough to know what is going on, but not enough to know every detail. But from what I've seen it fees like the current US government is trying really hard to not embroil the country in what could become another military action with Pakistan. It's almost as if there is a real aversion to it. Be it economic spending pressures, the current election year political climate, or whatever, there really seems to be an aversion to getting "too hard nosed" about things with Pakistan. The policy towards Pakistan has been confusing at best, spineless at worst.

Could there be some regional influence in play? Could getting too heavy handed with Pakistan further destabalize an already volatile area?

[Kevin]

I wont lie, I don't stay "on top" of foreign policy news, I keep up enough to know what is going on, but not enough to know every detail. But from what I've seen it fees like the current US government is trying really hard to not embroil the country in what could become another military action with Pakistan. It's almost as if there is a real aversion to it. Be it economic spending pressures, the current election year political climate, or whatever, there really seems to be an aversion to getting "too hard nosed" about things with Pakistan. The policy towards Pakistan has been confusing at best, spineless at worst.

Could there be some regional influence in play? Could getting too heavy handed with Pakistan further destabalize an already volatile area?

My basic take is this. We have pretty solid relations with India. Pakistan and India hate each other. Before the whole Afghanistan mess we didn't get along that well with Pakistan. We still don't. It's not adversarial, but it's not friendly. So we make concessions to just get them to allow us to have troops on their soil, which we need to be able to supply and support the Afghan efforts. If we get too pushy, they will kick us out. There have already been accusations that we are gathering Intel for India as is. There is a history of when we share Intel with them on ops in Afghanistan that this info tends to always get leaked. Pakistan is still pissed we shut them out of the Bin Laden kill operation. Arresting Shkil Afridi to me feels like it's partly retaliation for this.

Pakistan also still has some strong regional differences. Imagine the US today if Instead of most states being at most 60-40 splits between dem/repbulican that say the south and southeast was 95 - 5 Democrat, the west was 90 - 10 Libretarian, the Northeast was 95 - 5 Republican, and the midwest was 50-50. Then imagine that we have to host Turkish troops because they are fighting the drug cartels in Mexico because of their war on drug terrorist and that some of the battles happen in Texas. Texas is mostly Democrat, but bordered by areas that are split, and the country itself is controlled by Republicans. Do you think the local Texans wouldn't lock someone up for helping the Turk's because he broke a state law, even though our federal government may not want that, because while we aren't the best friends in the world with Turkey we aren't hostile.

Oh and the US and Canada are constantly arguing that the 38th parallel was a crap and that southern Canada should be part of the US and that the northern states should be part of Canada and we have nukes aimed at each other all the time, but Turkey really likes getting all their tech support from those Canadians.

I know that isn't really what it is, but I end up trying to put things in terms like to wrap my head around the paths that need to be traveled. The hardest thing is because the US really is mixed regionally politically even if some states are always one way, you still find a lot of the opposing opinion there, that isn't the case in other countries.

[kandrathe]

I wont lie, I don't stay "on top" of foreign policy news, I keep up enough to know what is going on, but not enough to know every detail. But from what I've seen it fees like the current US government is trying really hard to not embroil the country in what could become another military action with Pakistan. It's almost as if there is a real aversion to it. Be it economic spending pressures, the current election year political climate, or whatever, there really seems to be an aversion to getting "too hard nosed" about things with Pakistan. The policy towards Pakistan has been confusing at best, spineless at worst.

Could there be some regional influence in play? Could getting too heavy handed with Pakistan further destabalize an already volatile area?

My basic take is this. We have pretty solid relations with India. Pakistan and India hate each other. Before the whole Afghanistan mess we didn't get along that well with Pakistan. We still don't. It's not adversarial, but it's not friendly. So we make concessions to just get them to allow us to have troops on their soil, which we need to be able to supply and support the Afghan efforts. If we get too pushy, they will kick us out. There have already been accusations that we are gathering Intel for India as is. There is a history of when we share Intel with them on ops in Afghanistan that this info tends to always get leaked. Pakistan is still pissed we shut them out of the Bin Laden kill operation. Arresting Shkil Afridi to me feels like it's partly retaliation for this.

Pakistan also still has some strong regional differences. Imagine the US today if Instead of most states being at most 60-40 splits between dem/repbulican that say the south and southeast was 95 - 5 Democrat, the west was 90 - 10 Libretarian, the Northeast was 95 - 5 Republican, and the midwest was 50-50. Then imagine that we have to host Turkish troops because they are fighting the drug cartels in Mexico because of their war on drug terrorist and that some of the battles happen in Texas. Texas is mostly Democrat, but bordered by areas that are split, and the country itself is controlled by Republicans. Do you think the local Texans wouldn't lock someone up for helping the Turk's because he broke a state law, even though our federal government may not want that, because while we aren't the best friends in the world with Turkey we aren't hostile.

Oh and the US and Canada are constantly arguing that the 38th parallel was a crap and that southern Canada should be part of the US and that the northern states should be part of Canada and we have nukes aimed at each other all the time, but Turkey really likes getting all their tech support from those Canadians.

I know that isn't really what it is, but I end up trying to put things in terms like to wrap my head around the paths that need to be traveled. The hardest thing is because the US really is mixed regionally politically even if some states are always one way, you still find a lot of the opposing opinion there, that isn't the case in other countries.

Let me put it this way... If Hillary pulls this off (getting him and his family free to come the the US), I'll become a life long Hillary supporter. She's already gone 1/2 way there with me for how she handled the Chen Guangcheng affair. In foreign policy, and military policy, we should endeavor to do what is morally correct. I can't comment on the CIA's actions, nor how they failed to protect their asset. Secrets are hard to keep in this day and age, so we should have contingency plans for assets like this when cover is blown.

[Kevin]

Let me put it this way... If Hillary pulls this off (getting him and his family free to come the the US), I'll become a life long Hillary supporter. She's already gone 1/2 way there with me for how she handled the Chen Guangcheng affair. In foreign policy, and military policy, we should endeavor to do what is morally correct. I can't comment on the CIA's actions, nor how they failed to protect their asset. Secrets are hard to keep in this day and age, so we should have contingency plans for assets like this when cover is blown.

I agree, if she does it will be amazing. It also sucks the situation happened (wherever the real breakdown was). I also agree we should try to free him, and protect any other assets like him, but I can't imagine what we would have to give up given the climate a deal would need to be made in.

[kandrathe]

Let me put it this way... If Hillary pulls this off (getting him and his family free to come the the US), I'll become a life long Hillary supporter. She's already gone 1/2 way there with me for how she handled the Chen Guangcheng affair. In foreign policy, and military policy, we should endeavor to do what is morally correct. I can't comment on the CIA's actions, nor how they failed to protect their asset. Secrets are hard to keep in this day and age, so we should have contingency plans for assets like this when cover is blown.

I agree, if she does it will be amazing. It also sucks the situation happened (wherever the real breakdown was). I also agree we should try to free him, and protect any other assets like him, but I can't imagine what we would have to give up given the climate a deal would need to be made in.

How about a prisoner swap. We give them the convicted (former) Pakistani terrorist, Majid Khan. But, they probably don't want him back. I see also that a US Senate funding oversight committee has passed thru an amendment 30 - 0, to cut aid the Pakistan by $33 million.

[kandrathe]

Some positives for this case. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23882900